Coastal site treasures saved from sea by archaeologists

Gossabrough Haa, Yell, is one of the sites Archaeology Shetland have been digging since August. Photo: Ellie Graham.

Archaeologists have been working to save pieces of history from the brink as they have discovered artefacts and old buildings on a cliff edge in Yell.

In August, volunteers working with Archaeology Shetland investigated several sites around the islands, which yielded evidence of the people who had lived there from around 2,500 BC to AD 1,900.

On Gossabrough beach in Yell, a small stone ‘box’ constructed of thin flat slabs had been spotted earlier in the year by an eagle-eyed local and member of Archaeology Shetland.

The stones were eroding out of the sand dunes in front of the Old Haa and in need of attention before the sea destroyed it.

When the team arrived in August, they were just in time to save the majority of the feature, which had already suffered one side collapsing.

First believed to be a prehistoric funerary cist, volunteers discovered that the feature most likely dates to the 19th century and had been constructed from reused roof tiles with small circular holes for nails to secure the slabs.

Archaeology Shetland’s Stephen Jennings said: “We have a robust, active membership with people from a variety of locations in Shetland and spend a lot of time interacting with coastal heritage, where we can see the real-time damage rising sea levels are causing.

“The Archaeology Shetland member who reported the stone ‘box’ at Gossabrough Beach had spent a lot of time there in his youth as his grandparents had a croft on Yell.

“A few months more and it would likely have passed unnoticed. This is how quickly things are changing.”